USPS Address Verification Tool: Verify Before Mailing

Thomas Fine - September 14, 2024

The United States Postal Service (USPS) offers a wide range of tools to make life easier when sending and receiving mail and ensuring the package you ship goes to the correct address. You can find many of these tools that the USPS offers on their website under the Quick Tools tab.

However, the USPS doesn’t have an address verification tool you can use to verify if an address belongs to the person you want to send a package. Although there isn’t such a tool to verify an address with the USPS, you can utilize other free tools out there to verify someone’s address and ensure that the package you send arrives to them.

Our article will cover how you can verify an address without using a USPS address verification tool, as there isn’t one. Read to the end to learn how to verify an address before sending a package via the USPS.

Online USPS Tools

The USPS offers a wide range of tools, from package tracking to calculating the cost of sending a package. Here’s a brief overview of the USPS tools.

• Track a Package: As the name suggests, this tool helps you track a USPS package by entering the 22-digit tracking number.
• Informed Delivery: This is a USPS service that enables you to get notifications on packages scheduled to arrive soon and images of incoming letter-sized mail to know who’s sending you what, even before the packages arrive.
• Find USPS Locations: A simple USPS tool that enables you to find the nearest United States Postal Service office.
• Buy Stamps: You can browse hundreds of stamps and buy them online.
• Schedule a Pickup: An online USPS tool that enables you to check availability and schedule for mail pickup at your location online.
• Calculate a Price: A detailed online calculator to get an estimated cost of shipping mail via the USPS, including international shipping.
• Look Up a ZIP Code: This online tool is the closest to an actual USPS address verification tool, where you can get the ZIP code of an address in a variety of ways. You can enter the details of the address you’re sending a mail to see if it matches the results on the USPS website. Since it relates to verifying an address with the USPS, we’ll cover this tool in detail below.
• Hold Mail: This online USPS tool allows you to use the Hold Mail service at a USPS location for up to 30 days.
• Change My Address: This tool can change your address online and even update voter registration.
• Rent/Renew PO Boxes: You can use this USPS tool to reserve and pay for a PO box online.
• Free Boxes: You can order free boxes and envelopes with this tool and select from a wide range of options.
• Click-N-Ship: This online tool allows you to create postage labels for individuals and small businesses without going to the post office.

How to Verify an Address on the USPS Website

The USPS doesn’t have a tool specifically for verifying if the address belongs to the person you’re mailing. As mentioned above, the closest tool to an actual USPS address verification tool is the Look Up a ZIP Code. Here’s how it works.

Look Up a ZIP Code By Address

To look up a ZIP code by address, you only need to enter the address. It works whether it is a corporate or residential address. The tool then shows the ZIP code the address belongs to.

Look Up a ZIP Code By City and State

This option, available in the Look Up a ZIP Code tool on the USPS website, provides a comprehensive list of ZIP codes for a specific city. For example, you can enter Charlotte, North Carolina, and get all the ZIP Codes for the city.

Cities by ZIP Code

The last option in the USPS Look Up a ZIP Code tool is the Cities by ZIP Code. You enter a ZIP code, and the tool shows the cities that it covers. It is a helpful tool when you’re unsure about which city to write down in the mail.

USPS Address Verification Tool Alternative

While the above is different from an actual USPS verification tool, you aren’t helpless. There are other ways to verify an address. You can use our address lookup tool to determine if the address you’re sending is accurate.

Here’s how you can verify an address using our address lookup tool without the need to dig through the USPS website to find something that will enable you to do the same.

1. Go to our address lookup tool.
2. Enter the address details, including street name, city, and state.
3. Once you click search, you will get a full list of people associated with the address.
4. From the list, find the person you’re sending mail to and click Open Report.
5. Get a detailed report about the address that includes information about who lives there.

Using our address lookup tool, you can verify the addresses of the individuals and businesses you’re sending mail to. Moreover, the results also include previous addresses. In case you send mail and it doesn’t get picked up, you can find their previous address and forward it there instead.

Other Ways to Utilize Address Lookup

While Information.com’s address lookup tool can help you verify someone’s address, it can help you discover much more than that. Our address lookup tool doubles as a helpful tool to discover more information about people. 

Once you select a person from the list upon entering an address, you will get a detailed report that includes the individual’s relatives, criminal history, social media accounts, contact information, and basic information, such as their full name (and any previous names, age, and marital status.

Our address lookup tool also provides a detailed description of the property from public records. You will be able to learn when the house was built, ownership history, property zones, taxes, and more.

With such capabilities, our address lookup tool can help much more than verifying an address before sending mail to someone.

Verifying Address Without a USPS Address Verification Tool

We’ve explained that you can verify an address despite the fact that the USPS doesn’t have an address verification tool. If that’s the only function you’re looking for on the USPS website, you will need to search elsewhere. However, many USPS tools can be helpful when sending and receiving mail.

Since you can’t verify an address on the USPS website, use our address lookup tool to verify an address before sending mail without the help of the USPS website. You can simply enter an address on our lookup tool and learn if the address you’re sending is correct, as well as more information about the people that live there.